Abstract
In this chapter, I attempt to introduce broad approaches to decolonizing English in school curricula. It makes the case for a much longer historical trajectory of such efforts, arguing that decolonizing efforts are not simply products of recent awakenings in academia about the need to decolonize power, knowledge and being. Scholars from all over the globe, since the formal ceding of power back to subjugated nations in the 1950s and 1960s, have called for decolonizing the curriculum, including the English language curriculum, in all levels of education, as part of nationalization or cultural indigenization projects aimed at taking ownership of the design of the ex-colonised people’s future. This chapter will feature four innovative intercultural and multilingual approaches to decolonizing English-centred curricula: taking ownership of knowledge, reclaiming local knowledge, embedding English in bi/multilingualism, and deploying translingual pedagogy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abbs, B., & Freebairn, I. (1977). Starting strategies: An integrated language course for beginners of English. Longman.
Abbs, B., & Freebairn, I. (1979). Building strategies: An integrated language course for learners of English [Students’ book]. Longman.
Agoncillo, T. A., & Alfonso, O. M. (1960). A short history of the Filipino people. University of the Philippines.
Ashraf, H. (2018). Translingual practices and monoglot policy aspirations: A case study of Pakistan’s plurilingual classrooms. Current Issues in Language Planning, 19(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2017.1281035
Baker, W. (2009). The cultures of English as a lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly, 43(4), 567–592. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00187.x
Bakker-Mitchell, I. A. (2002). Foreign language education in post-colonial English speaking Caribbean. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 29(3), 192–202.
Canilao, M. L. E. N. (2020). Foregrounding Philippine Englishes in fostering linguistic equality. Asian Englishes, 22(2), 195–215. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500018583
Canilao, M. L. E. N. (2019). English–mine, yours, and ours: Enabling all learners to own it for a purpose. The English Connection, 23(4), 7–8.
Charles, E. (2019). Decolonizing the curriculum. Insights, 32(1), 24. https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.475
Constantino, R. (1970). The mis-education of the Filipino. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1(1), 20–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/00472337085390031
Cushman, E. (2016). Translingual and decolonial approaches to meaning making. College English, 78(3), 234–242.
Dearden, J. (2015). English as a medium of instruction-a growing global phenomenon. British Council. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/e484_emi_cover_option_3_final_web.pdf
de Los Ríos, C. V., Martinez, D. C., Musser, A. D., Canady, A., Camangian, P., & Quijada, P. D. (2019). Upending colonial practices: Toward repairing harm in English education. Theory Into Practice, 58(4), 359–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2019.1626615
de Los Ríos, C. V., & Seltzer, K. (2017). Translanguaging, coloniality, and English classrooms: An exploration of two bicoastal urban classrooms. Research in the Teaching of English, 52(1), 55–76.
Dowling, T., & Krause, L. (2019). ‘Ndifuna i meaning yakhe’: Translingual morphology in English teaching in a south African township classroom. International Journal of Multilingualism, 16(3), 205–225. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2017.1419475
Dumatog, R., & Dekker, D. (2003). First language education in Lubuagan, Northern Philippines. Retrieved January 12, 2021, from SIL Philippines: http://www-01.sil.org/asia/ldc/parallel_papers/dumatog_and_dekker.pdf
Escobar, A. (2004). Beyond the third world: Imperial globality, global coloniality and anti-globalisation social movements. Third World Quarterly, 25(1), 207–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/0143659042000185417
Fasakin, A. (2021). The coloniality of power in postcolonial Africa: Experiences from Nigeria. Third World Quarterly, 42(5), 902–921. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1880318
Ferguson, G. (2003). Classroom code-switching in post-colonial contexts: Functions, attitudes and policies. In S. Makoni & U. Meinhof (Eds.), African and applied linguistics (AILA volume review) (Vol. 16). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.16.05fer
Goh, D. P. S. (2015). Elite schools, postcolonial Chineseness and hegemonic masculinities in Singapore. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 36(1), 137–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2014.971944
Gonzales, N., & Moll, L. (2002) Cruzanda el puente: Building bridges to funds of knowledge. Educational Policy, 16(4), 623–641.
Gonzalez, A. (1976). Content in English language materials in The Philippines: A case study of cultural and linguistic emancipation. Philippine Studies, 24(4), 443–454.
Gray, J. (2002). The global coursebook in English language teaching. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Globalization and language teaching (pp. 161–177). Routledge.
Grosfoguel, R. (2006). World-systems analysis in the context of transmodernity, border thinking, and global coloniality. Postcolonial Studies to Decolonial Studies: Decolonizing Postcolonial Studies, 29(2), 167–187.
Guillermo, R. (2003). Exposition, critique and new directions for Pantayong Pananaw. Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, 3, 1–20.
Guo, Y., & Beckett, G. H. (2007). The hegemony of English as a global language: Reclaiming local knowledge and culture in China. Convergence, 40(1–2), 117–131.
Hsu, F. (2015). The coloniality of neoliberal English: The enduring structures of American colonial English instruction: The Philippines and Puerto Rico. L2 Journal, 7(3), 123–145. https://doi.org/10.5070/L27323549
Horvath, R. J. (1972). A definition of colonialism. Current Anthropology, 13(1), 45–57.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). A postmethod perspective on English language teaching. World Englishes, 22(4), 539–550. https://doi-org.libproxy.ucl.ac.uk/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2003.00317.x
Loomba, A. (1998). Colonialism/postcolonialism. Routledge.
López-Gopar, M. E. (2016). Decolonizing primary English language teaching. Multilingual Matters.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548
Matemba, Y. H., & Lilemba, J. M. (2015). Challenging the status quo: Reclaiming indigenous knowledge through Namibia’s postcolonial education system. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 9(3), 159–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/15595692.2014.997382
Paterno, M. G. (2018). Anguish as mother tongue: English in a multilingual context. In I. Martin (Ed.), Reconceptualizing English education in a multilingual society (pp. 67–83). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7528-5_5
Pennycook, A. (2018). Applied linguistics as epistemic assemblage. AILA Review, 31(1), 113–134. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.00015.pen
Portolés, L., & Martí, O. (2017). Translanguaging as a teaching resource in early language learning of English as an additional language (EAL). Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature, 10(1), 61–77.
Phyak, P. (2021). Epistemicide, deficit language ideology, and (de) coloniality in language education policy. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2021(267–268), 219–233. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2020-0104
Rafael, V. L. (2015). The war of translation: Colonial education, American English, and Tagalog slang in The Philippines. The Journal of Asian Studies, 74(2), 283–302. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911814002241
Ramanathan, V. (2015). Contesting the Raj’s ‘divide and rule’ policies: Linguistic apartheid, unequal Englishes, and the postcolonial framework. In R. Tupas (Ed.), Unequal Englishes: The politics of Englishes today (pp. 203–222). Palgrave Macmillan.
Rixon, S., & Smith, R. (2012). The work of Brian Abbs and Ingrid Freebairn. ELT Journal, 66(3), 383–393. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccs022
Rubdy, R. (2015). Unequal Englishes, the native speaker, and decolonization in TESOL. In Unequal Englishes: Politics of Englishes today (pp. 42–58). Palgrave Macmillan.
Salonga, A. O. (2015). Performing gayness and English in an offshore call center industry. In Unequal Englishes: The politics of Englishes today (pp. 130–142). Palgrave Macmillan.
Shizha, E. (2013). Reclaiming our indigenous voices: The problem with postcolonial sub-Saharan African school curriculum. Journal of Indigenous Social Development, 2(1), 1–18.
Soto-Molina, J. E., & Méndez, P. (2020). Linguistic colonialism in the English language textbooks of multinational publishing houses. HOW Journal, 27(1), 11–28.
Sterzuk, A., & Nelson, C. A. (2016). “Nobody told me they didn’t speak English!”: Teacher language views and student linguistic repertoires in Hutterite colony schools in Canada. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 15(6), 376–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2016.1233066
Subedi, B. (2013). Decolonizing the curriculum for global perspectives. Educational Theory, 63(6), 621–638. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12045
Sugiharto, S. (2013). Rethinking globalization, reclaiming the local: A post-colonial perspective of English language education in Indonesia. The Indonesian Quarterly, 41(3), 148–166.
TESOL Islamia. (2022). Accessed from https://www.tesolislamia.org/, on July 21, 2022.
Thomson, P., & Hall, C. (2008). Opportunities missed and/or thwarted? ‘Funds of knowledge’ meet the English national curriculum. The Curriculum Journal, 19(2), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585170802079488
Tlostanova, M., & Mignolo, W. (2009). Global coloniality and the decolonial option. Kult, 6 (Special issue: The Latin American decolonial option and its ramifications), Fall, 130–147.
Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society, 1(1), 1–40.
Tupas, R. (2021). Afterword: Who controls the production of knowledge? Teacher empowerment in TESOL teacher education. In A. Ahmed & O. Barnawi (Eds.), Mobility of knowledge, practice and pedagogy in TESOL teacher education. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64140-5_16
Tupas, R. (2015). Inequalities of multilingualism: Challenges to mother tongue-based multilingual education. Language and Education, 29(2), 112–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2014.977295
Tupas, R., & Martin, I. P. (2017). Bilingual and mother tongue-based multilingual education in The Philippines. In O. García, A. Lin, & S. May (Eds.), Bilingual and multilingual education, encyclopedia of language and education (pp. 247–258). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02324-3_18-1
Valdez, C. (2020). Disrupting colonial discourses: Anticolonial academic language development for the elementary classroom. Multicultural Perspectives, 22(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2020.1728276
Vaish, V. (2005). A peripherist view of English as a language of decolonization in post-colonial India. Language Policy, 4(2), 187–206. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-005-3523-7
Walter, S. L., & Dekker, D. E. (2011). Mother tongue instruction in Lubuagan: A case study from The Philippines. International Review of Education, 57(5), 667–683. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-011-9246-4
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tupas, R. (2023). The Struggle to Decolonize English in School Curricula. In: Sahlane, A., Pritchard, R. (eds) English as an International Language Education. English Language Education, vol 33. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34702-3_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34702-3_20
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-34701-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-34702-3
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)